Every year at the Gramophone Classical Music Awards we honour an artist that has made a particularly strong impression with an early – or debut – recording with our Young Artist of the Year Award. Here we present the winners of the Award from the past 10 years, from this year's winner Yunchan Lim back to 2014's Nightingale String Quartet, with links to recording reviews, podcasts and interviews for each artist so you can explore their artistry in greater depth. 

2024 - Yunchan Lim

‘The highly personal imaginative touches that are a feature of his outstanding Chopin Études are hallmarks of an exploratory young artist with much to say and consummate means with which to say it.’ (Tim Parry, Awards 2024)

Recommended Recording

Chopin Études – Op 10; Op 25

Yunchan Lim pf (Decca)

‘Yunchan Lim’s Chopin Studies are a triumph, and to say that they bode well for his future is a colossal understatement.’ (David Fanning, May 2024)

Read the review | Buy or stream on Presto Music

➤ Yunchan Lim interview: ‘I decided that I will give up everything for music’

2023 - Stella Chen

‘First, there’s her guest appearance on Francisco Fullana’s album ‘Bach’s Long Shadow’ (2021) in Ysaÿe’s Sonata for two violins – an album highlight for their combined supple, silvery finesse and glow. Her own ‘Stella x Schubert’ album, recorded in 2022 with pianist Henry Kramer, doubled down on those adjectives with an all-Schubert recital of fine architecture, tonal beauty and inner soul. Roll on whatever’s next.’ (Charlotte Gardner, Awards 2023)

Recommended Recording

‘Stella X Schubert’

Stella Chen vn Henry Kramer pf (Platoon)

‘This is the work of a thinking violinist who has been exploring this music for years. The Fantasie itself receives a poetic reading couched in a sweetly gleaming tone whose weight and attack flit easily between silken vulnerability and broad, powerful punch.’ (Charlotte Gardner, April 2023)

Read the review | Buy or stream on Presto Music

➤ The power of Schubert’s Fantasie: the extraordinary work holds a particularly personal power for Stella Chen - so how did early critics get it so wrong?

2022 - Johan Dalene

‘A wondrous tone, an elegant straightforwardness and a freshness of utterance that alerts you to characteristics of a phrase without reinventing it. That much was apparent on his debut album with Christian Ihle Hadland (who shares so many of Dalene’s qualities but has huge experience too), of which Andrew Achenbach wrote about “fresh-faced ardour” and musicianship “judiciously pliable”.’ (Andrew Mellor, Awards 2022)

Recommended Recording

Nielsen. Sibelius Violin Concertos

Johan Dalene vn Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra / John Storgårds (BIS)

‘Dalene always sounds like himself – in his distinctive, delicious and very present savoury tone (never revelled in for its own sake) and in his ability to fix a point on a horizon and play, unhurriedly and with a sense of purity, towards that point.’ (Andrew Mellor, April 2022)

Read the review | Buy or stream on Presto Music

➤ Johan Dalene interview: ‘You can be an emotional person even if you have not experienced serious struggles’

2021 - Fatma Said

‘I reviewed Said’s debut album ‘El Nour’ last year – our Song category winner this year – and really enjoyed her engaging delivery and her bright, silvery soprano voice. Her programming encompassed French and Spanish repertoire, including a vividly characterised Shéhérazade, along with Egyptian art songs that were quite the revelation.’ (Mark Pullinger, Awards 2021)

Recommended Recording

‘El Nour’

Fatma Said sop Malcolm Martineau pf Burcu Karadag fl Rafael Aguirre gtr vision string quartet (Warner Classics)

‘Said is an engaging storyteller, her French diction sharply animated, with shiny top notes glinting brilliantly.’ (Mark Pullinger, December 2020)

Read the review | Buy or stream on Presto Music

➤ Fatma Said interview: ‘Am I stupid enough to compare myself to Whitney Houston?’

2020 - Natalya Romaniw

‘Her voice struck me immediately, a big sound for such a young singer, but it was her ability to control it, floating Tchaikovsky’s phrases with lyrical ease, which really impressed.’ (Mark Pullinger, Awards 2020)

Recommended Recording

‘Arion: Voyage of A Slavic Soul’

Natalya Romaniw sop Lada Valešová pf (Orchid Classics)

‘Make no mistake, Romaniw is a great talent. The plush richness of her soprano is astonishing.’ (Mark Pullinger, July 2020)

Read the review | Buy or stream on Presto Music

2019 - Jakub Józef Orliński

‘Not many singers could switch roles at short notice to play the title-hero in Handel’s Rinaldo at Glyndebourne – and even fewer are prize-winning breakdancers with a side-line in modelling whose extra-curricular talents have included advertising campaigns for Nike, Mercedes-Benz and Levi’s. In the context of the operatic and recording industries’ mania for marketable countertenors, Jakub Józef Orliński is not a run-of-the-mill commodity. The obvious potential for hype over style doesn’t really matter when one hears the substance of his singing.’ (David Vickers, Awards 2019)

Recommended Recording

‘Anima Aeterna’

Jakub Józef Orliński countertenor Il Pomo d’Oro / Francesco Corti (Erato)

‘An album that reinforces Orliński as one of the most striking young talents not just in countertenor singing but in Baroque music more broadly.’ (Alexandra Coghlan, Awards issue 2021)

Read the review | Buy or stream on Presto Music

2018 - Lise Davidsen

‘Hers is a name to remember, and a voice – once heard – you won’t forget.’ (James Jolly, Awards 2018)

Recommended Recording

Grieg Songs

Lise Davidsen sop Leif Ove Andsnes pf (Decca)

‘In purely vocal terms, it’s a stunning display of range and technical control. But the soprano’s way with the texts – especially those in her own language – is also beautifully unaffected and honest.’ (Hugo Shirley, January 2022)

Read the review | Buy or stream on Presto Music

2017 - Beatrice Rana

‘Everything about Beatrice Rana speaks of maturity, from the playing itself to her modest reflections on it, and from her thoughtful approach to the music to an attitude towards her career that essentially says “not too much at once”. We must be patient, then; it would surely be both impolite and impolitic to hurry her. There will be plenty more to savour in years to come.’ (Lindsay Kemp, Awards 2017)

Recommended Recording

Stravinsky Petrushka. The Firebird Ravel Miroirs. La Valse

Beatrice Rana pf (Warner Classics)

‘There’s no question that Rana is an immensely resourceful pianist who can pull off dazzling effects when warranted. But it is her sane, thoughtful music-making, inerrant in focus, often strikingly original and always from the heart, that sets her apart.’ (Patrick Rucker, November 2019)

Read the review | Buy or stream on Presto Music

➤ Inside Beethoven’s ‘Hammerklavier’ Sonata with Beatrice Rana

2016 - Benjamin Appl

‘This young singer has huge potential and we look forward to following the exciting journey that lies ahead. As Richard Fairman concluded, in his May review: “Sample his debut solo disc and you will hear the current front-runner in the next generation of Lieder singers”.’ (James Jolly, Awards 2016)

Recommended Recording

‘Heimat’

Benjamin Appl bar James Baillieu pf (Sony Classical)

‘There is more than enough quality in his singing, and pleasure to be had from his musicianship and interpretative instincts, for this charming and often moving disc to be confidently recommended.’ (Hugo Shirley, March 2017)

Read the review | Buy or stream on Presto Music

2015 - Joseph Moog

‘Moog, backed by his label, bucks the trend and ploughs his own furrow with taste and discernment – a Young Artist of the Year with all the qualities of the old artists of yesteryear.’ (Jeremy Nicholas, Awards 2015)

Recommended Recording

Grieg. Moszkowski Piano Concertos

Joseph Moog pf Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrucken Kaiserslautern / Nicholas Milton (Onyx)

‘From Moog everything sparks and thunders. A virtuoso to the manner born, notes stream from his fingers like cascading diamonds, his playing alive with what David Fanning so wittily called “the boggle factor”.’ (Bryce Morrison, September 2015)

Read the review | Buy or stream on Presto Music

2014 - Nightingale String Quartet

‘Think for a moment how much richer the recording catalogue would be if every excellent quartet opted to establish themselves with the ear- and eye-opening originality that these four have. Congratulations to them, and to Dacapo for ensuring they have become far more than a well-kept Scandinavian secret.’ (Andrew Mellor, Awards 2014)

Recommended Recording

Holmboe String Quartets, Vol 2

Nightingale String Quartet (Dacapo)

‘These, then, are new, original interpretations of one of Denmark’s hidden gems, on which they are casting much-deserved light.’ (Guy Rickards, August 2022)

Read the review | Buy or stream on Presto Music